Greatest Need
by Spiritus Rex
Summary: "Everything looked different than it had - radically different, frighteningly different. Each and every tree that stood was a black and burnt skeleton, reaching upwards in vain for help, and each tree that did not stand was mere ashes upon the ground. Arthur, loathe as he was to admit it, felt fear shudder down his spine at the sight." - Arthur has returned. oneshot with spoilers.


The world was dark when Arthur pulled himself from the waters of Avalon. His armor and chain mail hung off him, wet and heavy, as he drug his feet through the mud, tearing up lake plants and stones beneath the water as he went. Mud swirled slowly just below the surface behind the king, a sign of the chaos he had torn, but Arthur paid it no mind. He was only focused upon his most immediate goal: getting to shore.

The shoreline was difficult to see in the blackened night, and Arthur ended up stumbling into the hardened earth and nearly tripping over his own feet when he finally reached it. Thankful that there was no-one there to see the proud king stumble, he- Arthur paused. No one was there. No one stood along the shoreline, watching or waiting for his return. Surely _at least_ Merlin should be present. Arthur would never admit it, but he had been almost counting on his loyal servant to be waiting for him. The last sight he had seen before death had been Merlin - a broken, _sobbing_ Merlin, desperately pleading for Arthur to _stay with him_ \- and so Arthur had been hopeful for the same man to be the first sight he saw upon rising - hopefully minus the sobbing, as that was a sight he never wished to see again.

"Merlin!" Arthur roared, hoping that the warlock was nearby, trying his best to sound authoritative despite the water that bubbled up in his throat. He coughed and hacked at the suddenness of it, and pressed a hand to his chest as he swallowed and spluttered until he could breathe clearly. His other hand was unable to come to his aid, as it held his sword - _the sword _\- tightly. Golden at the center and dangerous silver around the edges, Arthur felt like dropping it back into the lake and letting it rest in peace behind him. He had no need for such a weapon anymore, no need for it after Morgana had been run through with it and Merlin had tossed it out into open water. It should have stayed there, beneath the surface of the lake - Arthur coughed once more and his grip on the sword hilt tightened - he should have stayed there.

The king finally looked up from the muddy ground after what seemed like ages, and he squinted against the darkness in order to see the treeline before him. Everything looked different than it had - radically different, frighteningly different. Each and every tree that stood was a black and burnt skeleton, reaching upwards in vain for help, and each tree that did not stand was mere ashes upon the ground. Arthur, loathe as he was to admit it, felt fear shudder down his spine at the sight. Either a forest fire had swept through the area recently, or something far more sinister had a penchant for flame.

Arthur staggered towards the trees, his sword held defensively in front of him, as if whatever had burned the trees would suddenly leap out and attack. He was worried now, for the state that he would find his beloved Camelot in, for Merlin who had not appeared at the shore, and for himself trying to find his way through all this destruction. Kings though, Arthur thought resolutely, were not _supposed_ to worry. Servants and the common citizens were supposed to worry, and kings were supposed to sooth all their worries and fears by riding out and dealing with the problem. Kings did not worry themselves, for if they did, the kingdom would sense their leader's hesitation and certainly be sent into their own panic. There was no kingdom to depend on Arthur now though, and despite his previous thoughts of kings not worrying, he worried.

The forest was easy to navigate, with all the foliage burned away and nothing to block his view of the path ahead. Breathing though was not as easy, as with each step taken a new cloud of ash burst up towards his face. Arthur coughed - he seemed to be doing that a lot since his emergence from the lake - and shuffled sometimes, but continued on. He vowed angrily to himself that if he found whatever did this to this forest, he would down it as quickly and mercilessly as possible.

Then, there was the sound of a distant crash, and Arthur brought himself to a forceful halt. His opportunity to down the beast looked to be coming sooner rather than later. He tensed his body and listened carefully for another sound, and when nothing came, Arthur began moving again at a much slower pace. Another crash then sounded, this time much closer, and Arthur stopped again. Arthur brought his sword up before him, eyes sharp as he stared into the blackened forest around him. Hunting instincts from what seemed like a thousand years ago flooded back to him, and he crouched. All thoughts of Merlin and of Camelot and of how long he'd been dead were now gone from his mind, in favor of focusing on thoughts of hunting down whatever had destroyed the land. One more vague sounding crash, and then a crunch of ash and broken wood as whatever it is moved impossibly closer, and then

"_Arthur?"_

The whispered word carried with it a wave of _wrongness_ so strong that Arthur physically staggered. He grunted once, and then held himself steady against the odd feeling.

"Show yourself!" He hoped he sounded like a king, rather than a scared prince. The Dorocha come to mind, and suddenly Arthur realized that he felt now like he had then; nearly powerless against an unseen foe. "Have you done this?" He gestured to the wreckage around him with his sword, while still trying to get a feel for where whatever it was that whispered his name was.

"_Arthur. Arthur!" _

Arthur grit his teeth as the voice approached, sounding now more like a desperate - hopeful? - chant than an actual calling of his name. The crashes and crunches all came in succession then, as if something were running towards the king through the destruction.

Then suddenly, Merlin was there, stumbling frantically and clumsily through the darkness with a familiarity that had Arthur breathing what felt like his first clean breath of the night. Arthur dropped his guard immediately and grinned in extreme relief. The warlock was certainly a sight for sore eyes, and quite a sight himself. An oddly long scarf had replaced Merlin's typical neckerchief, and his clothes looked very fake - almost costume-like - to Arthur, what with the stripes of color on his servant's shirt and odd shoes that looked fit to fall apart on his feet. None of that mattered to Arthur though, at least not at that moment. He would ask Merlin about his odd clothes later, now though, now he had been reunited with an old friend, and all he could feel was happiness at seeing the man unhurt.

"Merlin!" He exclaimed, and threw himself into motion once more. Arthur made to go and throw an arm around his friend's neck and shoulders, embrace him as he once had after finding the man in a bog after days of Merlin missing, "I thought you'd gone and left me." Arthur joked lightly, trying to distract himself from the current situation. Merlin didn't reflect a jibe back at Arthur though, and did not move as his king pulled him into a one armed hug of sorts. Arthur kept his sword angled away from Merlin's body so as not to accidentally skewer his friend in his elation. Yet after a moment of Merlin's stiffness, Arthur pulled away, and he eyed his manservant with a frown.

"Never..." Merlin's voice sounded like wood wagon wheels on gravel, dry and broken. "I'd never leave you Arthur- I never did- I- I waited for you, for _so long_ Arthur."

The _wrong_ feeling was back again, permeating Arthur's armor and digging its claws into his stomach so strongly that he swallowed in an attempt to dislodge them. He found himself unsuccessful. "And how long exactly have you been," one more dry swallow, one more attempt, "_waiting_, Merlin?"

Arthur didn't forget that Merlin was a sorcerer - warlock? What was the difference? - but still found himself flinching slightly as Merlin's eyes twitched and flickered with gold. No immediate magic presented itself though, and so Arthur pegged it as a nervous habit of Merlin's and then did his best to calmly wait for an answer even as the suspense grew with the silence. This question was _the question_, ranked in importance next to 'what did this to the forest?' It would determine if Arthur needed to rush back to Camelot after a year or two of missing, or if he needed to dig his sword into the ground and await death after missing hundreds of years. Merlin stayed resolutely quiet, his eyes on his hands that were shaking terribly.

The answer, when finally given, chilled Arthur to the bone. "...a little over fifteen hundred years..." It was a _far_ longer duration of time than the Once and Future King had expected.

"Fifteen hundred years..." Arthur gasped, as if there were no breath left in his body. Determined not to drop his sword in shock, he gripped it even tighter than he had been. Surely it hadn't been that long- Merlin must've counted the years incorrectly.

But no, Arthur knew by the hollow look to Merlin's face that it was true. Fifteen hundred years. His beloved Gwen would be long dead, as would all his knights. Camelot would be nothing more than dusty rubble beneath time's heavy weight. Arthur had been gone, literally dead to the world, for so long. Yet, Merlin had waited for him to return _the entire time_.

"I thought for sure..." Merlin was speaking again, and so Arthur tore himself from his tumultuous thoughts to focus on what his friend was saying. Merlin frowned brokenly for an instant, before pulling his mouth into a trembling smile that he seemed to choke on, "I thought for sure you'd come back in the First World War," _First World War? _"Or the Second," _oh god _"but you never did."

Arthur did not move as Merlin took a step forwards, and he watched the hope in the warlock's eyes be swallowed by something far colder. Those eyes widened slightly, and stared straight through his king, as his hands shook and shook until Merlin looked like he would fall apart if he tried to take one more step. Arthur wanted to go and help steady the man, but his sword burned against his palm and held him back. Something was dreadfully wrong.

"You have to understand Arthur," Even though Merlin said his name, Arthur wasn't sure if Merlin was even speaking to him anymore, as he pleaded so desperately with the distance. "Kilgharrah said... he said that when Albion's need was greatest, that you'd come back." Merlin broke off into a sob at the end, and Arthur wondered how it had come to this. Him and Merlin, standing together hundreds of years in the future, both so broken in different ways, as a monster that burned forests watched from the shadows. "-And I couldn't stand it anymore. So I had to do something. I had to get a little," A short laugh broke through the sobs, crazed and extremely similar to those laughs of Morgana's as she had watched her brother fall. Arthur felt fear. "I had to get a little _creative_."

With a sweep of one thin arm, Merlin gestured to the burned and decimated forest around them. The _wrongness _slammed into Arthur once more, forcefully tearing his eyes open with the realization that the monster that did this was much closer than he had feared or had ever expected. Merlin turned and looked at Arthur expectantly like the good servant he was, arms outstretched and fingers splayed, offering up the terror of the land to his king.

Merlin had made himself the _enemy_.

Arthur closed his eyes and breathed heavily, willing time to stop and wait and just _let him breathe_ as he tried to come to terms with everything that was happening _so quickly_. Merlin, who had once done all he could for Camelot and its king, who had once only ever thought of how to help people and keep others from harm, now had burned a scar across the kingdoms of Albion unlike any other. He had forced, through suffering, the earth itself to turn to its last resort, and raise a dead king from Avalon because he was the only hope it had against the twisted, hurt warlock that stood before him now. Arthur clenched his jaw against imagined screams of terror, and his head throbbed in response to his grinding of teeth.

_Oh Merlin… you changed…_

Arthur Pendragon, King of Camelot, made his decision. He opened his eyes and looked once more at his friend. But no, _no_, this was not his friend, not _his_ Merlin. Not anymore. He had ceased to be Merlin the moment he had turned his powers to his creative means of dragging Arthur back to life. The man that Arthur was looking at now was twisted by the immortal life he had been forced to live, and twisted more so by the mortal lives he had been forced to watch fade.

Merlin, hands frozen and still outstretched, smiled a tremulous smile at his king. The smile sent an arrow of sickness straight to Arthur's gut, because all of this had been for _him._

Arthur knew that he would hate himself for years to come for what he was about to do. He knew that he was marooning himself in this strange new world without a friend or guide to help him. He knew that Merlin didn't deserve this. _Any_ of this. He knew, oh god, he _knew_.

"Arthur?"

He wanted to scream at Merlin, tell him not to speak, that it would only make it harder for Arthur to do what he knew Albion raised him from the lake to do. But he did not scream or yell or rage, he only kept his face a still and blank mask. He was the Once and Future King. He was stronger than this. He had led armies through battles and seen his men die around him too many times for him to be moved to tears by one man. No man was worth his tears. No man.

The man before him was no mortal man.

The sword that Merlin had forged for him _burned_ in his fist again, as if the dragon fire that had made it what it was was bursting to life around the metal once more. It knew what had to be done, it knew what Arthur had decided.

Not a mortal man...

_This is no mortal blade..._

Arthur struck.

* * *

**AN: This oneshot has gone through hell and back I feel. It started as a oneshot, turned into a multi-chapter fic which I almost dropped multiple times, and now it's back as a oneshot. I really do like it better as a oneshot though, and I hope you all do too. **

**Arthur's return from Avalon is something that I've seen done many times in fanfiction, each time having a unique twist from the author that makes it somehow so different from all the others - and so when I first wrote this back when it was my first fanfic after four years of not writing, I wanted to take the opportunity to put my own unique twist on something that I loved and that I saw that other people loved. My dark twist is something I have not seen often though. Merlin going a bit insane with the wait is something I feel could happen very easily, especially after all that he went through in the series to try and fulfill destiny, only for it to end with him being left alone to wait. And of course he would unknowingly drag Arthur down with him, they are two sides of the same coin after all.**

**Thank you all for your reviews on the previous chapters that used to be in this fic if you reviewed, and thank you all for all the reviews to come. I appreciate every single word.**


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